It's also customizable and has a design that's both minimalist and fresh — not an easy feat for an email app. Discuss email privately. Invite teammates to discuss specific email and threads. Ask questions, get answers, and keep everyone in the loop. App Store and Mac App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. Reliable email app with Read Receipts, Send Later, Snooze, Tidy Inbox & more for modern-day business communication. On Mac, Windows, iOS & Android. Free Part of macOS. Like us you are probably using the Mail app that comes with your Mac. It’s not a bad app at all. One of the key benefits is the simple fact that there is a. Spark is definitely one of the best email clients for Mac as it comes with several unique features like the Smart Inbox feature. As a result of this feature, this app can easily arrange all the mails into several categories, including Personal, Notifications, Newsletters, Pinned, and Seen. Install the updates to your mail client, to patch it up for work with latest version of Mac OS. Mail app in macOS Mojave offers new features for sending, receiving, and viewing email messages.
Over the last few years, email has become an integral part of our daily lives. It has evolved from a simple way to send and receive text between two parties into a familiar and reliable method of communication that can be used as a place to receive newsletters, updates, and notifications from various services, etc. Several email apps have built additional features and experiences on top of the core email technology, such as shared inboxes, team collaboration, delegation, inline comments, etc.
Finding an email client for your Mac is not a trivial task. There are numerous free email apps for Mac that are released every few months and many simply shut down or disappear just as easily. Thankfully, we’ve made it easy for you by picking some of the best email apps out there and highlighting everything you should know about them. By the end of this article, you’ll emerge fully aware why Readdle’s Spark is by far the best email app for Mac.
Here’s our roundup of all the good email clients available for macOS:
1. Apple Mail app
Pricing: Free
Pros: Good set of basic features, well-integrated with the OS, great for starters.
Cons: Lacks advanced features, no customization options, often ignored by Apple.
It’s nearly impossible to talk about the best email apps for Mac and not include Apple’s own Mail.app in the list. Apple Mail is a reliable & solid email app for Mac that is a great option for someone just starting off with email. It comes bundled with macOS and integrates well with the major email service providers. Mail app works best when used with iCloud and automatically sets up the iCloud email account when you set up your iCloud account on your Mac.
It has a basic set of features that are good enough for novice users to get started with the essential email experience. If you’ve just switched to a Mac from a PC, you’ll find the Apple Mail app experience far better than anything you’ve previously used from Microsoft. But you’ll quickly realize that Apple Mail lacks the essential email features that are must-have in today’s day and age and you’ll find yourself searching for the best Apple Mail alternative on Mac.
2. Microsoft Outlook for Mac
Pricing: Free to download, but requires a Microsoft 365 Subscription starting $70/year
Pros: Comes bundled with other Microsoft apps, Built-in Calendar, Dark Mode
Cons: Expensive in the long run, cluttered User Interface, unfamiliar design language on Mac
Microsoft Outlook for Mac is what Apple Mail would be if you threw in a bunch of features and made it look like every other Microsoft app. Unlike the Outlook Mail app on iOS which is praised by many, Outlook for Mac feels like a cluttered mess designed by a team of programmers 10 years ago. It is, however, packed with several great email features. Outlook has what it calls a Focused Inbox, which automatically sorts your important or personal emails into the Focused tab and separates the rest of the junk like newsletters and marketing emails into a separate tab.
Outlook comes bundled with a Microsoft 365 subscription that gives you access to Word, Excel, Powerpoint, OneNote, and OneDrive, so if you use any of these apps on your Mac, you can easily start using Outlook for Mac over Apple Mail and take advantage of all its good features. It works with email services like Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud and pretty much anything that supports POP3 or IMAP protocols (I’m looking at you HEY Email). However, if you want a Mac email client that has both a beautiful design & a feature-rich approach, you have to look no further than Spark.
3. Spark
Pricing: Free for Individuals & Small Teams, with optional Premium plans for teams that require more features
Pros: Beautiful & polished design, elegant aesthetics, feature-packed, multi-platform, several team-focused features, great for collaboration.
Cons: Lacks a Windows app (currently in development)
Spark is a beautifully designed and feature-rich email client from the house of Readdle, known for their suite of productivity apps for iOS and Mac. Spark offers a distraction-free email experience through a delightful interface and a very powerful set of features. It works with all major email services like Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, Hotmail, Aol, GMX, Exchange, as well as any IMAP account.
Spark features a Smart Inbox that automatically sorts incoming email in collections of Personal email, Notifications, and Newsletters. This lets you focus on all the important emails first, while the rest of the clutter takes a back seat. This, coupled with the Smart Notifications feature that only alerts you about the important emails is a great way to take control of your inbox and get productive.
Spark comes with a smart & robust email search feature using which you can locate any email buried deep down in an instant. Simply search for what you’re looking for using Natural Language Search terms and Spark will find it for you. Type “Attachments from Nick” to search for all emails from Nick that have attachments in them, and “PDF attachments from David sent last week on Monday” to bring up all those emails from last Monday from David that have PDF files in them. You can even save your frequent searches, so locating those emails is just a click away.
If you don’t feel like attending to an email right away (such as bill reminders or upcoming renewal notifications), you can set the email aside temporarily using the Snooze feature and reduce the clutter in your inbox. You can schedule emails to be sent later, get reminded to follow-up if you don’t get a response by a stipulated deadline, integrate with a bunch of different apps & services, and so much more. Spark has all the features you need to work with email.
One area where Spark really shines is Spark for Teams. Invite your team members to Spark to collectively work on email together. Spark for Teams lets you Delegate emails — complete with a due date, Share & Discuss email with teammates with inline comments, collaborate on email with a real-time editor on Shared Drafts and share your emails with teammates without manually forwarding them and cluttering up their inboxes.
Overall, Spark is a remarkable bundle of all the features you need to work with email. It’s a fantastic email app for Individuals, and even better for teams. You don’t have to deal with two different versions — the same Spark app is the best Mac email client for personal use and adapts itself with built-in features to become the best email app for teams as well.
Best of all, Spark is absolutely free, so you really have no reason to miss out on the wonderful experience that Spark has in store for you.
4. Airmail
Pricing: Free, but requires a Recurring Subscription of $2.99/mo for Pro features
Pros: Loaded with features, fast, and has a Unified Inbox.
Cons: Messy UI that feels like it was hastily put together, requires Pro subscription for most features.
Airmail is a popular email client available for macOS that boasts of several features in its satchel. It supports all the popular email service providers including Exchange, as well as accounts with IMAP or POP3 access. Just like in Spark, there’s an Unified Inbox feature that lets you view emails from all your accounts in one place.
If you have a Mac notebook with a Touch Bar, Airmail puts your frequently used actions on it so that they’re just a tap away. You can, of course, customize these actions with your favorite set. There’s a lovely Dark Mode to help you with the night sessions, Quick Replies for short responses, a Today Widget to get a quick overview of your inbox, and a handy Share Extension so you can instantly email anything using Airmail.
Overall, Airmail is a really good email app for macOS, and would do really well if it wasn’t for its messy UI and it’s requirement of a recurring subscription of $2.99/mo for Pro features that hasn’t gone down well with its users.
5. Mailplane
Pricing: $30
Pros: Brings the familiar Gmail experience with a native interface
Cons: Only works with Gmail, often breaks due to changes by Google
If you have multiple Gmail accounts that you use simultaneously, Mailplane is the app you need to have on your Mac. Simply put, Mailplane is a native Mac app that wraps around the familiar web interface of Google’s products. With Mailplane, you get Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts — all in the same application. You can use multiple accounts in the app, and you can mix and match the accounts & services. For example, you can have Tab 1 for your personal Gmail account, Tab 2 for your G Suite for Work account, and Tab 3 for your Work Calendar account.
Mailplane has a handy notifier that not only alerts you about new emails, but also shows unread messages count in the menu bar. It has a ‘Search Everywhere’ feature that lets you simultaneously search for emails across different mailboxes. It also seamlessly integrates with a bunch of different macOS apps. My favorite Mailplane feature is that since it is essentially a browser for Google’s web UIs, it supports most of the popular third-party extensions to enhance your experience. You can enable Grammarly to improve your language, Simplify/Gmail to clean up the Gmail UI, Boomerang for Gmail to power-up features, Clearbit to add context to email addresses, and so on.
Unfortunately, your experience is still plagued with issues as Mailplane has to depend on Gmail’s web UI for it to work correctly and oftentimes it just fails to load Gmail, asking you to load an basic HTML version instead. You’ll also often be annoyed by Gmail asking you to enter your account credentials to verify yourself if you use too many accounts in Mailplane. To avoid these hassles, you can set up multiple Gmail accounts in Spark for Mac. This way, you get a premium native email experience and you also have access to your Google Calendar and contacts at your disposal.
6. Canary Mail
Pricing: $20
Pros: Good design, with heavy focus on Security & Privacy
Cons: Lacks Team features
Canary Mail is another email app for macOS that puts a heavy focus on privacy and security. It features end-to-end encryption, full PGP support, and an open source mail sync engine, making it a good choice for users who rely on PGP for all their email communication.
Canary has a beautiful design that looks like any other native Mac app built by Apple. There are familiar icons and buttons in the Mac app, and the UI is built to be simple yet powerful. It’s almost like the default Mail app on steroids.
While Canary is a pretty good email app for personal use, it lacks team collaboration features that are the need of the hour today. If you need to discuss emails with your team, need to draft emails together, and want to share emails without manually forwarding them, then Spark Mail app is what you really need.
7. Newton Mail
Pricing: Recurring Subscription of $49.99/yr
Pros: Multi-platform, Minimal & elegant design
Cons: Expensive subscription with an unclear future
Newton mail is an immensely popular email app that has spent quite some time in the news cycle lately. The app has an extensive set of features that make it an attractive choice for normal and pro users both. Newton features a very minimalistic user interface that takes the clutter out and lets you focus on the core email experience. Unfortunately, the UI is a little too minimal for many who are bothered by the empty spaces in the app.
In recent times, Newton has managed to alienate its loyal users after it announced that it is shutting down, two times in a row. The first time, the original owners of Cloudmagic announced that they were shutting down Newton, only to be bought over by Andy Rubin’s phone company Essential. Then for round #2, when Essential was shutting down, they announced that Newton would meet its end as well, only to be brought back by two independent fans of the service who didn’t want to see it die. As of now, there’s no clear future for Newton, especially considering that the service is priced at a hefty $50 per year.
When pitted against all the popular email apps for Mac available in the market, Spark Mail app emerges as the best email app for Mac by a long margin. It has the absolute perfect combination of a friendly & elegant user interface along with an extensive & robust set of features. Coupled with its impeccable polish, seamless integrations, phenomenal team features, and highly impressive price of being available for free, there’s really nothing that comes close to being a viable contender. Spark is truly the best email client for Mac.
Are you facing issues with the Mail app opening randomly on your Mac? You are not alone. It could pop up while you are in the midst of work to display a new email. Or it could bug you for no obvious reason at all. Annoying. So, can you do anything to stop that from happening?
Connectivity issues with certain email accounts (such as Gmail) can trigger the Mac's Mail app to open randomly. So far, Apple has not released a permanent fix to this issue. But thankfully, there are a few fixes that you can apply to patch things up. Without any further ado, let's get started.
Minimize Instead of Close
If the Mail app opens without warning while running in the background, try minimizing the app instead of closing it—click the orange-colored icon to the top-left of the window to do that. You can also use the Command+H keyboard shortcut to minimize the Mail app quickly.
That isn't a permanent fix by any means and could take some getting used to. But it's a surprisingly quick way to put a pause to the Mail app's odd behavior.
Also on Guiding Tech
Airmail vs. Spark: The Battle for Best Mail Client on Mac
Read MoreUse Gmail App Password
Are you using Gmail on the Mac? At times, the Mail app may fail to connect to your Google Account, especially if it's secured with two-factor authentication. That could result in the app opening automatically whenever it re-establishes the connection.
Thankfully, you can fix this issue with an App Password.
Step 1: Use a web browser to sign in to your Google Account. Click the Security side-tab, and click App Passwords (located within the 'Signing in to Google' section).
Step 2: Generate an App Password for the Mac's Mail app. Copy it to your clipboard.
Step 3: Open the Mail app. Next, click Mail on the menu bar, and then click Preferences. Switch to the Accounts tab, and then remove your Gmail account.
Step 4: Re-add the Gmail account.
Step 5: When prompted for your password, add the App Password instead of your Google Account password.
That should likely stop the Mail app from facing connectivity issues with Gmail going forward.
Note: If you want to revoke the App Password for the Mail app, re-visit your Google Account and click Security > App Passwords.Use a Separate Space
Give the Mail app a separate desktop space. Open Mission Control, create a new space (click the Add icon to the top right), and then drag the Mail app into it. That should prevent the Mail app from opening randomly and interrupting you.
Click the Mail app on the dock whenever you want to check your email. Alternatively, you can visit the desktop space manually via Mission Control.
Check for New Messages Manually
Are you still having issues with the Mail app opening randomly on your Mac? Try checking for new messages manually. To do that, go to the Mail app's Preferences screen (Mail > Preferences), and then set 'Check for New Messages' to Manually.
Click the Get Mail icon—located to the top-left corner of the Mail app window—whenever you want to fetch new messages manually.
Note: This isn't a viable fix for most and isn't recommended if you receive urgent emails frequently.Also on Guiding Tech
#macos
Click here to see our macos articles pageDisable Messages in Split-View
Is the Mail app opening new emails automatically in Split-View while using another app in full-screen mode?
To stop that from happening, open the Mail app's Preferences screen (Mail > Preferences), and then disable the 'Prefer opening messages in split view when in full screen.'
Delete non-Essential Email Accounts
Try removing non-essential email accounts from the Mail app. That should further reduce odd connectivity issues from causing the Mail app to pop up on your screen randomly. To do that, go to Mail > Preferences.
Disable Open at Login
Is the Mail app only opening automatically while booting up your Mac? That isn't an issue, but rather happens when the app is configured to open at startup.
To stop the Mail app from doing that again, simply right-click the Mail icon on the dock, point to Options, and then uncheck Open at Login.
Alternatively, go to Apple menu > System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items, and then remove Mail from the list of startup items.
Also on Guiding Tech
Apple Mail vs Outlook for Mac: Which macOS Email App Is Better
Read MoreBottom Line
Most fixes that stop the Mail app from opening randomly aren't very practical, but they should help you until Apple resolves this issue for good. Hence, make it a point to install the latest updates for your Mac whenever they become available—to do that, go to Apple menu > System Preferences > Software Update.
So, know of any other fixes that can stop the Mail app from popping up on the screen all the time? Drop in a comment and let us know.
Next up:Getting bombarded with spam on your Mac? Check out what you can do to protect yourself from that.
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Read Next3 Tips to Protect Your Mac Against Spam in MailAlso See
Email App For Mac Os
#email #troubleshootingDid You Know
In 1981, the crew of STS-43 Atlantis sent the first e-mail from space.